A Quarter Past Dead

‘Mm,’ said Topham in a stonewall sort of way.

‘Murder,’ asked Miss Dimont, her voice rising now, ‘suicide? Or was it just an accident?’ The sarcasm was lost on the policeman, whose way of sweeping unwelcome deaths under the carpet was all too familiar.

‘A shooting fatality,’ came the stolid response. ‘Woman of middle age, guest of the camp who had been here four days. That’s it.’

It was enough, the rest of the drama would be in the writing. All Miss Dimont had to do now was find a telephone.

Herbert sensed the urgency of the moment and did not attempt a repetition of his earlier, most disagreeable, behaviour. Instead he took Miss Dimont, curls flying, on a roundabout trip through Knightsbridge, Regent Street and The Mall before arriving at a large well-lit building which clearly had been the officers’ mess and now housed the camp’s senior staff.

‘. . . phone?’ she said breathlessly to a vague-looking gentleman who poked his nose out of the door. ‘Because… emergency!’

The man smiled non-committally and his eyes clouded in concentration. Finally the penny dropped, and he meandered down the hall to a cubbyhole under the stairs and within five minutes Miss Dimont had filed her story.

‘Thank you so much,’ she said to her host, whom she discovered sitting at a small cocktail bar in an adjoining lounge. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce myself. Judy Dimont, Riviera Express.’

‘Oh,’ said the man, ‘you’ll be here for the murder.’

It happens like that sometimes in journalism. You spend all day knocking on doors and people won’t even be able to remember which day of the week it is, let alone their mother’s maiden name, then suddenly you bump into someone who knows everything.

This could be he.

‘Yes,’ Judy said encouragingly. It always pays to appear to know more than you do on such occasions and her conspiratorial nod, she thought, spoke volumes.

‘Our first stiff,’ the man said, laconically. ‘Of course, there’ve been a few at the other camps, but this is a first for Ruggleswick. Drink?’

‘Erm, that would be…’

‘I usually have a gin about this time of day,’ he said, though the bottom of his glass looked as though it had more recently contained an amber liquid. He was looking more than a little pink-cheeked but that could just have been the lighting.

‘Lovely,’ said Judy, who generally didn’t trust Herbert to behave after a drink or two and usually refrained in case he took a wrong turning on the way home. ‘She’d been here for less than a week.’

This reworking of Topham’s bleak statement made it sound like she knew what she was talking about.

‘Came on Sunday,’ agreed the man, sloshing a prodigious amount into each glass.

‘And should have been going home at the weekend.’ It made it sound as though she had the whole story already. She hadn’t a clue but it pushed the narrative to the next page.

‘Never saw her. She arrived, parked her bags and disappeared. Of the four nights she was here, her bed was slept in only the once.’

Ah, thought Miss Dimont, the moral turpitude which everyone enjoys gossiping about back in town. Clearly the lady had a friend who…

‘. . . must have had a friend who…’ said the man, nodding in agreement. ‘Only problem is there’s no single blokes booked into the camp. I checked because the copper asked me to.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Miss Dimont, suddenly collecting her thoughts, ‘I don’t know who you are.’

‘Baggs. Under-manager. I served with Bobby Bunton in the Catering Corps. Actually not strictly true – he managed to escape with a gammy knee after six weeks while I was in for the duration, worse luck. But we remained mates and he gave me this job.’ His hand shook slightly as he took another sip of gin; evidently war service in catering was not the breeze most assume it to be.

‘How nice. I haven’t met him but he sounds a wonderful man.’

‘Mm,’ said Mr Baggs.

‘So who was this lady in… Curzon Street?’ It never hurt to ask the extra question.

‘Oh,’ said Baggs, brightening, ‘are you interviewing me?’

‘Only if you want me to,’ replied Miss Dimont. She could tell he was dying to talk.

‘A strange one, that. Went by the name of Patsy Rouchos – South American by the sound of it. Interesting really. She had a cheap suitcase and cheap clothes but the rings she wore and her hair, her make-up, sort of said to me this wasn’t her usual kind of place. Come down in the world, perhaps. Or found herself a boyfriend from a different walk of life and was chasing after him.’

‘What did she look like?’

‘Very strong-looking, almost like a bloke, but handsome. Nice manners but distant. Nothing in the way she spoke to tell where she came from, but a cut above our usual campers, I’d say.’

‘So what actually happened?’ This was the crucial question which had been on the tip of her tongue from the start, but long ago she had learned to choose her moment. Get them talking is the first rule in journalism, and don’t ask awkward questions till you’ve managed to prise the door open a little.

‘One shot, through the heart. Or the chest – never quite sure if the ladies have a heart on the same side as us mere males. Or at all, ha ha!’

Miss Dimont looked into her glass and let this pass.

‘Elsie, the cleaner, found her late this afternoon, but I got a good look before the police arrived. She was sitting on the bed, completely dressed, full make-up, very well turned out. Almost as if she’d prepared herself for it.’

‘No gun?’

‘No gun.’

‘Signs of forced entry?’

‘Door was open.’

‘Could have been a burglary?’

Mr Baggs’ jovial tone suddenly deserted him. ‘Here?’ he said. ‘Here? Look Mrs, er,…’

‘Miss Dimont.’

‘People who come here have saved up all year. They haven’t got pots of money. Not likely, miss, to have expensive possessions worth taking a life for.’

The reporter felt embarrassed – Baggs was right. Suddenly she saw Buntorama for what it was, a sunny haven for working people who prized their few moments in this beauteous corner of Devon just as much as the posh collar-and-tie lot next door at the Marine.

‘My apologies, Mr Baggs, I’m just trying to find out why this should have happened. Who this Patsy Rouchos was. It’s unusual, don’t you agree?’

Baggs was quite a clever man, she could see, even if he had the weakness. And she wasn’t quite sure about his eyes. He poured himself another slug of gin but seemed too concerned with getting the measure correct to remember to refill Judy’s glass.

‘I was on the desk when she came through the gate that first day,’ he said. ‘Arrived on foot – that struck me as odd, usually the campers come by bus from the station. Carried her suitcase as if she was used to somebody doing it for her. Smiled politely when most of the campers are worn out from the journey and looking for a bit of a squabble. Her clothes were ordinary, but she stood out.’

‘That’s why you remember her.’

‘Look, we get hundreds of new faces every week, no reason to remember an individual over all the others. But she just struck me as a bit of a fish out of water.’